Into Another World
by mjolk
Summary: Chihiro meets another girl with similar other worldly experiences, Hitomi (Escaflowne crossover)
1. Meeting

Into Another World  
Chapter 1 - draft version  
a Sen to Chihiro no Kamikushi (Spirited Away) / Tenkuu no Escaflowne (Vision of Escaflowne) crossover fanfiction  
by Selene  
  
--------------  
Disclaimer: it's a FANfiction. if i own these characters, would I be calling it a fanfiction?   
--------------  
  
"Yukari, I better get going now or I'll be late!" Hitomi said, rummaging through her backpack for her wallet.   
  
Her best friend for years, Yukari, flicked her wrist to peer at her watch. "Oh, you're giving tuition to that kid again?"   
  
"Yeah." Hitomi found her wallet and opened it. She pulled out some money and put it in front of Yukari. "For my food. Handle the bill, would you? I need to go now."  
  
"Sure. Take care and have fun!" Yukari said cheerfully.  
  
Hitomi slid out from her chair and made a face at Yukari. "Giving tuition for a junior high kid is not -that- fun."  
  
Yukari laughed. "Enjoy it anyway!"   
  
Hitomi smiled. "Alright, see you later! Bye!" She hurriedly went to the exit door of the restaurant they were in and stepped out into the crowded street outside with hundreds of people milling around. Busy Tokyo, as always.   
  
Yukari sighed and sipped her drink slowly, staring out of the window. It had taken Hitomi over five years to "return" to normal life. After her mysterious disappearance when they were freshmen in senior high, she had been withdrawn and troubled. She had told Yukari all about what happened, about Gaea, about Fanelia, about Allen, and about Van.... Hitomi had been relunctant to admit it but Yukari finally managed to make her admit to herself and to her, that she had left her heart in Gaea, on a particular young king of Fanelia. Hitomi had been heart-broken and she had felt out of place in her world - she alone held the knowledge of what lay across space and time, a world whose inhabitants had called her home planet Earth, Mystic Moon.   
  
It took years for Hitomi to accept the fact that it was all in the past and that she had to move on with her life, that she had to look ahead, towards a brighter future. That was when the old cheerful, self-assured Hitomi returned. Yukari was grateful for it - best friend she might be, but she had felt Hitomi couldn't continue living the way she had. Yes, she was grateful that Hitomi was trying to live her life the best she could now. Although, sometimes, she still caught Hitomi spacing out looking at something unseen, as if her mind were on something far, far away, out of her reach, out of anyone's reach.  
  
---  
  
Chihiro frowned at the open book in front of her.   
  
"Hi-to-miiiiiii!" she started whining. "I can't solve this problem! Why does it have to be this complicated, anyway? It's not going to come out inthe test, right?"  
  
"How am I suppose to know? I'm not the one making the test questions!" Hitomi retorted. "Just try and do it first, would you? Use that formula you learned last week."  
  
Chihiro put on a sulky face, but she complied anyway. After a while she was deep in concentration, trying to figure the problem out.  
  
Hitomi sighed inwardly. Chihiro was a nice and friendly 15-year old girl and she wasn't exactly stupid, either - she just needed someone to push her to do her work well. And that's Hitomi's job as her tutor. She enjoyed her weekly session with Chihiro, Chihiro was such a sunny and cheerful girl, Hitomi couldn't help feeling the same way everytime she was around her. Chihiro reminded Hitomi of herself, when she was Chihiro's age, back before -it- happened. She refused to think what -it- exactly was.   
  
"Hitomi........."   
  
"Are you done?"  
  
"Hmm... yeah... sort of..... Kinda easy..." Chihiro unceremoniously shoved the paper she had been writing on in front of Hitomi's face.   
  
Hitomi reached for the paper and frowned darkly at Chihiro before lowering her head to check Chihiro's answer.   
  
"Nee, Hitomi......"  
  
"Hmm?" An absent-minded answer from the tutor who was busy checking the pupil's answer.  
  
"Do you believe that....... there's another world out there, a different world?"   
  
THAT made Hitomi jerked her head up sharply. "What do you mean, Chihiro?" Her tone cautious, her eyes narrowing.   
  
Chihiro raised her eyebrows at her, looking puzzled because of her reaction. "Well...... I had a weird dream last night. It wasn't a dream exactly because when I woke up, I knew it really did happened a long time ago to me. Except I had forgotten about it......." She turned her head to face the window, the late afternoon sunlight streaming into the room from it, and she put her chin on top of her hand, the elbow propped up on the table. "It was just..... so weird........"  
  
Hitomi laughed good-naturedly, nervously. "It was just a dream, Chihiro."   
  
Chihiro turned her head sharply, her eyes unnaturally wide, glistening with unshed tears, looking straight into Hitomi's eyes. "It wasn't, Hitomi," she said quietly. "I know for sure, it wasn't."  
  
Hitomi felt her heart stopped.   
  
"Wh...... what happened?" she asked hesitantly.  
  
Chihiro turned her head towards the window again, an unreadable expression on her face.  
  
"Why do people drain rivers and erase its path, as if it has never existed?"  
  
Hitomi blinked, surprised with the sudden change of topic. "Rivers? Well....... I suppose it's for land development, of course. The land can be used to build houses for people to live in after it's worked on."  
  
"Stupid, isn't it? Where do you suppose the drained river go, then?"  
  
Hitomi frowned. "Nowhere, Chihiro. It's been drained. The water just..... disappears...... channeled else where, or used for something else..."  
  
Chihiro bit her lower lip, her eyes suddenly glistening with unshed tears, the golden sky outside the window reflected clearly upon them. "But he didn't disappear................. Didn't he?"  
  
----  
  
Hitomi had tried to make herself forget Chihiro's odd behaviours and words two weeks ago. She couldn't quite get them out of her head, but she couldn't bring herself to ask Chihiro more about it. She was half-worried that she might just be entertaining a child's fantasy.   
  
She frowned at the ceiling of her bedroom. Chihiro was hardly a child. She was 15 years old, old enough to know what is real and what is not. If Hitomi had told someone older than herself about her magical journey to Gaea when she was Chihiro's age, would the person had believed her? She let out a long sigh, confronting one more worry she had been having: what other world was Chihiro talking about? She wanted desperately to know whether it was Gaea and if it was, how Chihiro knew about it. Or whether she had been there. There were so many questions in Hitomi's head.   
  
The phone beside her bedroom rang.  
  
"Hello," Hitomi said.  
  
"Hitomi, it's me, Chihiro..... Ne, there's something I need to ask you.... can I ask for a favour?"  
  
Hitomi bit her lip, shoulders tense. She fought to keep her voice neutral and level, "Of course, what is it?"  
  
"I remember what happened... I'd like to go back there, Hitomi, and I can't ask Father or Mother to come with me... so I'm asking you."  
  
"Go back where?"  
  
"When I was 10, we moved to another town... on the way there, we sorta got lost and something happened... I remember everything now. I remember how to get to the place."  
  
"But... what happened? Why did you forget about it if it were so important?"  
  
"......"  
  
"Chihiro?"  
  
"I told Father and Mother about it but they wouldn't believed me. After a while I didn't believe myself, either. I put it all behind and... I guess, I just forgot about it until that dream the other day. I've been trying to remember the details ever since."  
  
"You haven't told me what happened."  
  
A sigh from the other end. "If I told you I went to another world, a different world, would you believe me, Hitomi?"  
  
Hitomi said nothing, her hand clenching the phone tightly against her ear. Finally, fighting the tightening of her throat, she said, "Yes, Chihiro, I would."  
  
"REALLY??" Chihiro said, sounding excited.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"But....... why?"  
  
"Because I've been to one too."  
  
---  
  
TBC  
  
  
Notes:   
This is an idea I've been playing with for the longest time, letting Hitomi meet someone else who's had the same experience. I could always let her meet Miaka of Fushigi Yuugi but I don't see myself writing an FY fic *laugh* Sen to Chihiro no Kamikushi is one of my favourite movies now, perhaps not many people know about it so if you want to know more, go to an excellent website on it: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/sen  
This is a draft, so forgive the disjointedness and the grammatical errors. Please forgive the OOCness, especially in Hitomi's part. The rationale behind it was that, compared to Chihiro, she had a more traumatic experience (the war and the visions and all that gory detail LOL). She was older, too.   
The title "Into Another World" is a terrible cliche ^^ but it's based on a Yoko Kanno song of the same title, from Chikyuu Shoujo Arjuna. A wonderful piece, like all Yoko Kanno songs =D 


	2. Journey

Into Another World  
Chapter 2 - draft version  
a Sen to Chihiro no Kamikushi (Spirited Away) / Tenkuu no Escaflowne (Vision of Escaflowne) crossover fanfiction  
by Selene  
  
Disclaimer: they're not mine!  
  
-------  
  
They sat in one of the benches on platform, waiting for the train to come. Hitomi stared out at the urban city sprawled before her, colourful billboards popping among roofs and buildings here and there. Chihiro was busily tapping her feet against the floor, sitting low on the bench with arms folded in front of her chest.  
  
They had told each other everything, amazed at each other's experience. In the end, they agreed that returning to the place Chihiro had been to was probably easier than returning to the one Hitomi had been to, which could very well be light years away.   
  
It was not difficult to persuade Chihiro's parents to let them go, on the pretense of a weekend break in the countryside before Chihiro had to crammed everyday for her high school entrance exam. Chihiro's parents remembered nothing of the past, the weeks they had been gone to a different world were nothing to their busy, adult mind.   
Such things were not important.   
  
--  
  
"Turn this way, Hitomi," Chihiro suddenly said.  
  
Hitomi stopped the rented car she was driving and peered outside. "Are you sure? That's not even a road I can drive on!"  
  
"Or maybe we can just get down here and walk there?"  
  
"I think that's best," Hitomi said, a little dubiously. "I don't think it's safe to drive on that kind of terrain, anyway."  
  
They got down and started walking down the small road Chihiro mentioned. It was not even a road anymore; the wild grass had grown on it, but they could still see where the road was heading.   
  
"I remember those," Chihiro said, stopping suddenly.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Those deity statues," she answered, pointing at the side of the road where, among the tall wild grass, they could see glimpses of short stone statues.   
  
"People used to pray to them," Hitomi said. "I guess these have been abandoned. Well, if you remember those, then we must be heading the right direction." She started walking again, but stopped when she realized Chihiro wasn't following her. She remained standing there, staring at the statues.  
  
"Chihiro?"  
  
"They must be lonely," Chihiro said slowly. She shook her head sadly before she started walking to catch up with Hitomi.   
  
Hitomi smiled at her, "Maybe they've moved on....."  
  
"...... To another world," Chihiro continued, smiling back.   
  
"Yes. To another world."  
  
--  
  
They reached the end of the road, only to find a wall covered with crawling vines.   
  
"Is it here?" Hitomi asked.  
  
Chihiro merely nodded, glancing to her side, where a small squat grinning statue stood, covered with green moss. "This is it."  
  
Hitomi stepped forward to brush the vines aside, revealing a dark gap in the wall. "There's a hole here, alright." She pushed more of the vines aside, making a way big enough for both of them to go through. "There you go." She turned back at Chihiro and said quietly, "Are you sure about this?"   
  
Chihiro nodded. " I .. need to know. About myself and about .... him."  
  
Hitomi watched her carefully, remembering her own occassional wish to return to Gaea. She knew Earth was her home and it was where she belonged, but she couldn't help wishing to meet Van and everyone again, wanting to know what had happened to them, what kind of lives they were leading now... She shook her head and extended one hand to Chihiro.   
  
"Ready?"   
  
Chihiro stared at her for a while, before saying, "Are you sure about this, Hitomi? You don't need to come with me, you know.... I don't even know whether we'll be back safely."  
  
Hitomi smiled. "I know... but I can't let you go off alone, either. Don't worry, I've suffered worse and came back well and alive, and so have you. We'll do it again if we have to."  
  
"Thank you," came the quiet reply. "I'll ..... I'll go with you to Gaea too, if you want me to."   
  
"I don't think that's possible... and, I don't think that's a good idea. For me, at least, but thanks for the offer. Shall we go in now?"  
  
Hitomi had been skirting her own issue since they told each other their story, as if she was trying to forget about it. Chihiro didn't really understand her reasons, but she was glad she seemed to support her with this trip.   
  
Chihiro nodded at her, took a step forward and took Hitomi's hand. Together, they walked into the darkness.   
  
---  
  
They emerged from the tunnel on the other side soon after. The sky was as azure blue as Chihiro remembered, the grass as uncommonly green and as tall.   
  
"Down there, Hitomi," Chihiro said, tugging Hitomi's hand towards the direction of the town.   
  
"What a lovely world," Hitomi murmured. "It reminds me of Gaea slightly."   
  
Chihiro made a face. "I know. Our own world is just filled with boring tall buildings."   
  
Hitomi laughed, suddenly feeling more excited than before. This was a new world for her. A rich and vibrant magical world, from what she gathered from Chihiro's stories. It'd be interesting to see what they would see.   
  
They reached the town and walked down the main road quietly. There was no one in sight, not a human, not a spirit. The shops lining the road looked abandoned and desolate, some of the signs were fading and dropping.   
  
"Chihiro? It looks as if no one's been living here. Did it used to look like this, too?"  
  
Chihiro shook her head. "No. Back then, even in the broad daylight where you can't see the gods and the spirits, everything looked .. normal."   
  
They walked silently down the road, reaching the bridge that lead to the bath house.  
  
Hitomi laughed. "That looks just like a traditional Japanese bath house!"  
  
"It does, doesn't it?"  
  
They crossed the bridge together. As they neared, they saw the lanterns outside the gate were as worn and tattered as the shops lining the street that they had seen earlier.   
  
"It looks abandoned, too." Hitomi said slowly.   
  
Suddenly a train whistle was heard. Chihiro spun around and ran to the side of the bridge quickly. She peered down and there it was, the train. It sped past underneath the bridge and disappeared in the distance. "At least the train is still here," Chihiro remarked.   
  
Hitomi cocked her head towards the bath house's gate. "Wanna go in?"  
  
"Yes. Of course."  
  
The wooden gate was unlocked and could easily be opened. Inside, everything was empty and bare.   
  
"Everyone's gone," Chihiro said forlornly. "What could have happened?"  
  
They walked around the building, checking room by room randomly, going up one floor at a time. "Should we check out the Yuubaba's office?" Hitomi asked after they reached the fourth floor and finding nothing but several dozen empty rooms.   
  
"Yeah, that's a good idea. I hope the elevator is still working," Chihiro said, leading Hitomi to a discrete-looking elevator in one hidden corner. "This is one of the servants' elevator. We'll need to change elevator later."   
  
Luckily, the elevator was still working smoothly. They travelled up and changed to another larger and more decoratively elaborate elevator at one of the higher floors.   
  
The elevator door opened and Chihiro said, "This is her office's floor."  
  
They stepped out and Hitomi suddenly grabbed Chihiro's arm, stopping her.   
  
"What is it, Hitomi?"   
  
"Something's wrong. I feel...... something..........."  
  
"I thought you said you stopped having these kind of power?"  
  
"I thought so too, but......." Hitomi suddenly fell to the floor on her knees, her hands clutching her head, her face distorted with pain. The air was suddenly still and she couldn't seem to get enough air into her lungs. But then the wind roared in her ears, terrifying in its fierceness. It was like flying. And then she saw the corridor before her juxtaposed with a different one, yet the same one. Flapping black birds flew on either side of her head, swooping down, tearing, killing. She smelled a iron tang in the air. A smell she could barely forget.  
  
"No......" she moaned.  
  
"Hitomi? Hitomi?!!! Are you alright?" Chihiro put her arm around Hitomi's body, kneeling beside her on one knee, holding Hitomi up. "Say something!"  
  
Hitomi opened her eyes and lowered her hands. "I..... I......" Her voice was shaking, along with her entire body. Broken bodies were sprawled everywhere, slumped on the ground, against the wall. Suddenly a flash of white and green appeared amidst the black flapping wings, worming its way through, crashing its body against the walls. And then there was none.   
  
"Did you have a vision? Are you alright? Tell me, Hitomi!" Chihiro urged, her voice rising in panic.   
  
Hitomi turned her head and looked straight into Chihiro's eyes, her eyes glassy and haunted. "They're dead, Chihiro."  
  
"What do you mean? Who's 'they'?"  
  
"The people who used to live here. The servants....." Hitomi shivered. "They're all dead."   
  
"What? How?? And Haku? Did you see Haku?"   
  
"If he is the giant flying white dragon........ yes, I did see him," Hitomi said quietly.   
  
Chihiro waited.  
  
"I'm sorry, Chihiro. I saw him...... He fought the black birds who attacked this place. But then.... he was bleeding, falling...... and they tore him into pieces." Hitomi closed her eyes, trying to ward off the vision of the torned dragon.   
  
Chihiro gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, shaking her head.   
  
"I'm sorry, Chihiro. He's dead."   
  
----  
  
Notes:  
Hi, sorry for the long lag between one chapter to another. I'm slow, yes.   
It's good to see that there's already a category for Spirited Away. Yay for Chihiro x Haku fics hahahaha~   
Thanks for the few people who reviewed the first chapter. I'm glad the fic makes sense to those who know both series / movie, though it may not for those who don't.   
To answer queries, yes, of course, this fic will have Haku and Van. I adore waff and fluff, don't you? ^_~   
But as you can see, Haku is apparently dead, so there's a little problem here.   
Anyway, as always, this is a rough draft, so please mind the grammatical and spelling mistakes, or any glitches and bumps.   
Please review! XD XD 


	3. Clue

---------------------------------------  
  
Into Another World  
  
Chapter 3  
  
by Selene  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
Hitomi sat on the ledge outside the sleeping quarters Chihiro had led them to, telling her it used to be where she slept in. They had found futons inside the storage cabinet and laid two of them out for them to sleep in. They hadn't been able to find anything to eat while exploring the bath house, but fortunately they had brought with them some bread and water inside their backpacks.   
  
It was in the middle of the night and the world was still and quiet. Chihiro had already fallen asleep after a couple hours of tossing and turning. Hitomi found that she couldn't sleep at all.   
  
She sighed and placed her chin on top of the wooden railing, staring up at the sky. The moon was crescent, shining brightly in the middle of an expanse of bright twinkling stars. She had not seen a sky this beautiful and clear in a long time. Tokyo, for as long as she could remember, seldom showed her the sky at all. Even in areas devoid of sky-scraping buildings, the city lights were too bright that stars from afar couldn't compete. The only time she saw this kind of sky was in Gaea, with its twin moons. She had only realized how she loved watching the night sky in its unobstructed form when she came back to her own world.   
  
But the world she was in right now was different from Earth, different from Gaea. She had come to this world because Chihiro had no one else. She had come because, in her heart, she wanted to see Chihiro lived a happy life she herself hadn't been able to live after her other-worldly experience. It was not only because she had left the man she loved behind, not only because she had left people she cared more than most people in her own world in another world, it was also because of the horror she had experienced. She had spent many nights dreaming of the things she saw - the burning city, the screams of people dying, the acrid smell of burning, the smoke in her eyes, the blood...... and Van, always Van, dying in many horrifying way. She could close her eyes now and she still could see everything so vividly.   
  
And she had really thought she would be alright. Wasn't that what she told Van when he appeared to her that day, her final vision, their last link to each other? After that, her psychic abilities had disappeared without a trace and she refused to dwell in anything related to it.   
  
Yet, she had a vision earlier. She suppressed the chill running through her spine. If she had a choice, she wouldn't want to relive the experience of being able to see into the past nor the future again. Especially when there was only destruction and death to be found. Chihiro was distraught, she knew it, but she wouldn't let Hitomi know just how much. Hitomi admired the younger girl's strength and courage, whom at times seemed much wiser than herself.   
  
She looked up to look at the moon again, shielded by a wisp of thin cloud that was still letting out some of the moon's light, and fear, anxiety, worry, gripped her heart with an unshakable cold fist.   
  
------  
  
The next morning, Chihiro's first words after she woke up were, "I want to try to go to Zeniba's place. She might know something."   
  
"The train?" Hitomi suggested.  
  
Chihiro nodded. "I don't know where we can get tickets, though. We don't have any money, either."   
  
"We can try going to the stop first and ask about it when the train arrives," Hitomi said. "Someone should be able to tell us something."   
  
They left the bath house and headed for the nearest train stop.   
  
"You know, I don't think Haku is dead at all," Chihiro suddenly said when they were walking down the slope towards the train stop. "He was probably just hurt, wasn't he? I mean, he was quite badly hurt at that time too, but he stayed alive, didn't he?"   
  
Hitomi smiled listening to Chihiro's rationale. "I hope so too, Chihiro."   
  
"I mean, he's a god! He can't die!"   
  
"Yeah, I really hope so, Chihiro," Hitomi said quietly.   
  
The train stop was a mere platform with a wooden sign which could not be read anymore because the words had long faded. "You remember where Zeniba's house is?" Hitomi asked Chihiro to make sure.   
  
"It's the 6th stop from here, I think. But it's quite a long journey from here. I hope the train is running today. It'd be a very long walk if the train is not coming."   
  
Luckily Chihiro's fear didn't come true. They had only waited for around fifteen minutes when they heard the rattle of the train's wheels coming from the distance, followed by the sight of the train itself. When it stopped before them, the door opened and a semi-transparent figure appeared. Hitomi had to blink her eyes several times to make sure that she was really looking at something real. Chihiro, however, was already make her way to the figure. "Um... excuse me," she ventured slowly.   
  
The figure, which was in the shape of a human being, made a movement as if to turn itself to face Chihiro fully.   
  
"We want to take the train to Zeniba's house, but we don't have any tickets. Can we buy it from you? This is what we have," Chihiro continued. She reached into her pocket and showed him several folded Japanese yen money bills along with several coins on her outstretched hand. The figure reached out a shapeless arm and pushed the folded bills aside. He started to pick up the 100 yen coins from Chihiro's outstretched palm and he brought them towards (or was it into?) himself, where the coins disappeared entirely from their view. He made more movements as if reaching inside himself to find something before pulling out two tickets from within himself.   
  
Chihiro smiled widely. "Thank you!"   
  
They stepped up into the train and the figure of the train conductor stepped up behind them, closing the door with him. There were only three other passengers inside the train, which only had one carriage. All those three other passengers were sitting scatteredly inside the carriage and all of them, like the train conductor, were semi-transparent. Chihiro and Hitomi picked up a seat at the farthest end of the carriage, a fair distance away from the other passengers.   
  
Chihiro's memory was right. The train journey was long. They saw the three passengers that were with them in the beginning of the journey stopping and going down the train before they did, and more people, all of them semi-transparent, got on the train. On the sixth stop, they got down the train after Chihiro proclaimed that it should be the correct one.   
  
They decided to follow the road leading away from the train stop, it was the only visible road anyway. Chihiro lead the way, like what she had been doing all the time since they embarked on their journey to this spirit world. Hitomi smiled to herself. Chihiro, although younger than herself, was no doubt a very mature and capable person. She wondered whether she was ever anything like that when she had been Chihiro's age.   
  
"It's just down this road," Chihiro said. The sun was almost setting, leaving the sky an ethereal blue colour. "See the litte house over there? There are lights inside, so Zeniba should be there."   
  
When they reached the house, the door opened before they could knock. A figure cloaked in black from head to toe wearing a white mask appeared. "Hello!" Chihiro said. "How are you? Is Zeniba in?"  
  
Kaonashi bobbed his head up and down, making several sounds of joy and assent.   
  
"This is Hitomi. She's from my world too."   
  
Kaonashi bobbed his head up and down again, making more sounds and gesturing towards the inside of the house. He moved aside and repeated the gesture.   
  
"Alright, we'll go in now. Come on, Hitomi."   
  
The room they walked into were bright and spacious. A short woman with an unproportionally large head was sitting at the head of a long wooden table. She smiled brightly when she saw them. "Welcome, children. What a nice surprise this is. But then I've always known you would be back." She addressed the last comment to Chihiro, looking straight into her eyes.   
  
"Zeniba, do you know what had happened at the bath house?" Chihiro asked directly, walking to stand beside Zeniba's chair.   
  
"Sit down, have something to eat, and I'll answer your questions."   
  
Chihiro obeyed her and sat on the chair nearest to Zeniba's, but Zeniba got up. "You must be the Girl Who Sees. Come and have a seat too. I'll go and get some food for the two of you. I imagine it has been quite a long journey for both of you."   
  
Hitomi took her sit opposite Chihiro and asked, "How do you know who I am?"   
  
Zeniba was now stirring the laddle of the big black pot that was hanging on top of the fire. She laughed heartily hearing Hitomi's question. "I heard Chihiro mentioned your name outside. I knew instantly." She raised the laddle and grabbed two bowls from the pile sitting on the small table beside the fireplace and scooped a generous amount of thick soup into each of them. "Kaonashi, would you mind helping to bring these to our guests? I'll get the spoons and the bread."   
  
Once the food was served and ready to be eaten in front of them, Zeniba returned to her seat by the head of the table and Kaonashi sat beside Chihiro. Starving, Hitomi and Chihiro helped themselves to the food in front of them. After several mouthfuls, Chihiro looked up and said, "Zeniba, you haven't answered my question."  
  
The old woman smiled sadly. "I'm afraid it is as you fear, Chihiro. The bath house was attacked, its occupants slained, including my sister and her child."  
  
"But how? Who?" Chihiro insisted, her steaming soup forgotten for a while.   
  
"Eat it while it's hot, dear," Zeniba said, smiling while she pointed towards Chihiro's bowl. "The spirit world is filled with complexities and the undescribables, child. The best way I can explain it to you is that there was a powerful being who wanted something Yubaba had. To get it, the bath house had to be attacked and all the magic my sister possessed couldn't stand against it. She was defeated, the object changed ownership, and your dragon boyfriend perished while defending it."   
  
"It's true then... Hitomi's vision..." Chihiro said in a whisper, staring blindly at the table's surface in front of her.  
  
"Of course." Zeniba glanced at Hitomi sitting on the other side of her. "She is the Seer. Her visions never fail."  
  
"Then it was useless to come back here... I can't see Haku anymore..."  
  
Zeniba said nothing. The room was silent for a long time. Then Kaonashi started shaking his head violently: "Ah! Ah!"   
  
Zeniba looked at him sharply. "That is not the business of human beings."  
  
"What is it, Kaonashi? Zeniba? Is there something else?" Chihiro urged.   
  
"I was thinking that ... if Haku is a god.... how could he die? Gods are immortal, aren't they?" Hitomi said slowly, looking at Zeniba for confirmation.   
  
"You are wise, Seer. And you are partly right. Gods can't die."   
  
"Then Haku....?!"   
  
"No, Chihiro. In human's definition, he would be considered dead. He is not in this world anymore, he doesn't have a material flesh anymore, and he is out of reach to everyone in this world. Humans can't even understand the meaning of their own death and what happens to them when they die, how can you understand what happens to a god when he dies? It is far, far too difficult to understand with your limited mind."  
  
"Zeniba..........." Hitomi said slowly. "If there is a way, any way, for Chihiro to meet Haku one more time...... just please help her!"   
  
"Hitomi!" Zeniba barked sharply at her. "Do not try to lead Chihiro into oblivion just because you want to live through her by letting her have what you can't have."   
  
"She deserves it!" Hitomi shouted. "What's wrong with wanting to meet someone you love? If I can't meet Van, then at least Chihiro can meet Haku! I'll do all that I can to help her to do that!"   
  
"Human beings are foolish," Zeniba said bitterly, making her sound more like her twin sister.   
  
"Zeniba, I am not afraid," Chihiro said. " I -want- to meet Haku."   
  
Zeniba closed her eyes. "You will fail. But if you don't try, you won't understand. Very well. Tell me now, what do you think happens to a god in the spirit world when he dies?"   
  
"I don't know. I don't know! You said he would no longer has a material flesh, but if this is a spirit world, then he shouldn't have it in the first place!"  
  
"Ah, but you have flesh, don't you? You didn't leave your body outside that tunnel before you came here, did you? The same thing, my dear. This world is called the spirit world because this is where the gods dwell. When they are not meddling in human's affairs in your world, this world is where they choose to be in. My sister set up the bath house because she was greedy for money and power. She knew it would be a successful establishment that would lure many powerful gods to enjoy themselves with baths, entertainment, food.... This world is as material and as physical as yours. So when a god dies in this world, he merely leaves the physical world behind."   
  
"In our world, some people believe in the existence of Heaven and Hell after they die. Other people believe that the souls would be reborn into a new body, a new life." Hitomi said.   
  
Zeniba nodded. "The soul is eternal, whether you're a human or a god."  
  
"So where is Haku?" Chihiro asked in a whisper.   
  
"I don't know the answer. But there is someone who knows..." Zeniba stopped and sighed deeply. "Rest here for the night. Tomorrow morning you may begin your journey again. You will go to the end of the world and it will be decided there, whether this is the knowledge you need to know......"   
  
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TBC  
  
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Author's notes:  
  
Ack! Sorry, sorry, I know it's been too long since my last update. My update rate seems to be a chapter every 6 months or so ^_^; Anyway, thanks for reading and please give some critics and comments! 


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